Buoyed with buzz, Twitter offers 1% equity to Barkha Dutt

New Delhi. With Twitter in India abuzz with news about Radia tapes leaks (not on WikiLeaks) and Barkha Dutt becoming the center of that controversy, the micro-blogging site has decided not to lose this opportunity and go for the kill in India. Twitter has voluntarily offered a 1% stake to Barkha Dutt for keeping the controversy alive and raising similar “issues” in future.

“This is better than what Shashi Tharoor episode could do for us,” Dick Costolo, new CEO of Twitter told Faking News, “while Tharoor got us new users, who unfortunately forgot about Twitter once he resigned, Barkha has been phenomenal.”

Costolo, who is on a mission to define Twitter’s long term purpose, believes that Indians could help him discover that elusive answer to “what’s the point of Twitter?”

Barkha Dutt has not yet tweeted about the offer by Twitter

“You know, there were disillusioned hippies in 60’s and 70’s who suddenly developed some sense of purpose after smoking a weed with some Hindu saint in Goa,” Costolo pointed out, “We are keenly following the developments in India to get an answer.”

Costolo further pointed out to recent news reports that have termed Twitter as the new “watchdog” for the mainstream media and the recent activities as being akin to a “revolution” challenging traditional journalism.

“None of these would have been possible if there was no Barkha Dutt,” said Costolo, announcing his intentions to “reward” Barkha for helping Twitter discover its purpose and meaning.

Twitter CEO justified the step and termed it as a “pro bono quid pro quo” and denied any other motive behind it.

“There are many other journalists whose tapes have been leaked too, with a senior journalist like Prabhu Chawla talking about the possibility of Supreme Court judgment being fixed, but it hardly crated any ripple. There is something special about Barkha,” he said.

“If she becomes an integral part of Twitter and keeps on driving people to tweet like crazy, I’m sure our long term purpose would become even clearer,” Costolo hoped.

Costolo categorically denied that Shashi Tharoor had been earlier given any proxy sweat equity in Twitter for the same reason.

“That was all creation by media you see, that’s why you need Twitter,” he said, with a noticeable new found purpose.